


gravity (pulls me onto you)

by watchedyouburn



Series: l'encre de tes yeux [1]
Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: (not ellie and aster's dont worry), Abusive Father, Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Past Drug Use, Past Relationship(s), So much angst, Unhealthy Relationships, aster's been through a lot, i'm sorry u guys, no beta we die like gay disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:26:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24084313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchedyouburn/pseuds/watchedyouburn
Summary: "I'll see you in a couple of years."“It’s been eight years”. And four months, and five days. But Aster didn’t tell her that.Ellie looked away sheepishly. “Yeah, I know”.ORIt takes Aster time to find herself. She fails and she falls numerous times but eventually she gets back up again. She never quite loses hope that Ellie will come back to her. Or at least she tries not to.
Relationships: Aster Flores/OC, Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Series: l'encre de tes yeux [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023658
Comments: 37
Kudos: 392





	gravity (pulls me onto you)

**Author's Note:**

> i simply cannot get over this movie. it broke my heart and i will never be the same again. 
> 
> i needed to write out the sadness and the anguish so this is what came out of it. aster's character made me really sad tbh and i immediately started to have this idea in mind that she'd have trouble getting a happy ending and it wouldn't leave me so it's super angsty (can i write anything without angst? apparently not). i feel like i should apologise in advance haha. enjoy!
> 
> TW for mention of toxic relationships and use of the s**t and q***r slurs (not in an empowering way) and verbal violence. and mention of recreational drug usage too.
> 
> title from couple of kids by maggie lindemann

_”I’ll see you in a couple of years.”_

That was the last Aster had heard of her. She’d turned around, hopped on her bike and left, that promise hanging between them like an invisible thread. 

And Aster had hold onto that promise, at first. She’d gotten into art school, made it through her first year and survived the loneliness that’d started creeping up on her years before this. She came home for the summer and she felt more like a ghost of herself than ever but she pushed through. 

During her second year she dyed her hair purple in an attempt to cut off everything that still tied her to that quiet, faded teenager that’d been living her whole life as a lie and to experience what it meant to feel freedom. 

She dyed her hair purple and got three different ear piercings in the same month and came back home on Thanksgiving wearing those pieces of colour and metal like an armour. Her mother hadn’t say anything disapproving but she’d kept quiet (faded) when her father had told her that she was a slut and that she was ruining what was to be a perfect life. She’d kept quiet (faded) when he’d threatened to pull her out of art school and to trap her in this hell of a town again. She’d kept quiet (faded) when he’d yelled that he’d beat the queer out of her if it came to it and that God have mercy he would not have a queer for a daughter.

So Aster had gotten up, taken everything she could think of that would be useful and left. She’d gone to the only person she still knew in this town and still knew she could trust - Paul. She’d stayed with him until she could get on her return flight and never saw her parents again. She managed to get a job at the art gallery on 142nd street after pestering them for weeks until they relented but still had to dig into the money she’d put aside for emergencies because her whole life had become one.

She came back feeling lonelier than she’d ever felt and she wondered why she couldn’t shake this feeling that somehow it was not as much that she was missing out on her own life as that she simply did not know how to live it. 

She got out of classes one Wednesday and decided to go to one of those meetings her art school’s LGBT association did. There were a lot of queer kids at her school. But for some reason she didn’t want to get into (her obvious, conscious desire for self-isolation and self-hatred), she’d never gotten around to try and go to one of their event. After all, it wasn’t like she _was_ a queer, was it? She had not talked to a single queer person throughout her whole first year but she’d been hit on by the only two straight cis guys in her year in the spam of two weeks before people labeled her as cold, distant and generally uninterested. 

It’s not that she didn’t want to make friends. It’s just that every time someone tried to be nice to her - that person with the sparkling gaze and the dreadlocks who’d complimented her jacket on the first day or that other one with the sweet smile and the dark eyes who’d greeted her in Spanish a couple of weeks later - she closed off like existing around people was too much and gave off the impression she loathed anything that came out of anyone's mouth. So they felt uncomfortable and frowned and maybe tried a little harder but eventually they gave up. 

She was so far away from that teenager who'd always been smiling and playing pretend. She couldn't even remember how she'd pull it off all those years.

So she went to that event and felt like throwing up until a small, blond guy came sitting next to her and introduced himself as Noah. He was funny and quirky and soft in a way that almost felt like a trap at first. When she closed herself off he didn’t seem uncomfortable and he didn’t frown and he tried harder. He didn’t give up.

**

Slowly she started to open up. She saw the person with the gaze and the dreadlocks - by that time she didn’t have them anymore but sported a huge afro with streaks of green dye in it - at another event a month later and introduced herself again. The person - Irène - smiled to her and pulled her into a hug.

“You don’t have to introduce yourself, Aster! I remember you plenty. I’ve been wanting to be friends with you since that first day last year, you know? But I was too shy. I’m so glad it’s happening!” she told her eagerly. 

_I’ve wanted to be friends with you_. Spoken like an evidence. Like friendship was a bond Aster could form with people. Like her whole life hadn’t been about pretending and giving away shallow parts of herself as she played the role they’d wanted her to.

As if somehow she could be someone _real_.

She thought she had something real once. But it'd been wrapped in lies and plays in the end.

Aster’s face must have told Irène everything because she laughed. “Aww, don’t look at me like that! Do you think people wouldn’t want to be friends with you?”

“People have never known me enough to be friends with me” she let slip before she could stop herself. _Except for Ellie_ , she thought. Ellie had _seen_ her. She’d understood her in a way that was so uncanny she was scared to let anybody else know her again like that.

But then again she'd lie and she'd left. Aster had forgiven her for at least one of those things but the longing made it hard not to feel angry about her leaving sometimes.

Irène sobered up at that and looked at her sweetly. She took her hand in hers and squeezed.

“Well now there are people who want to” she said and Aster almost choked on the lump that had formed in her throat. 

Later that night Noah found her on the art school’s cultural centre's balcony, gazing at the stars, a glass of wine in her hand. 

“Hello there, tortured soul.”

She jumped at that sound, a deer caught in headlights. She barely relaxed when she saw it was her best friend. 

Her best friend. When did she start thinking about him this way? 

“Hi, Noah” she replied stiffly.

He came over to stand next her, leaning his forearms against the balcony and staring at her quizzically. “You know it’s funny. You always look like you’re watching out for something. Like you’re waiting for the moment I’m gonna reveal my true self to you and try to hurt you” he told her. “But I won’t, you know”. He took her hand in his and started playing idly with her fingers. “You’re welcomed here. You belong.”

And for the first time she believed it. She felt herself relax and it was like suddenly she was letting go of everything that had weighed down on her throughout her life. Like she’d been holding back that whole time without even realising it. She looked at him and she burst out crying. She cried and cried and cried until she didn’t have any tears left in her anymore and he stayed with her all the way. 

She’d been drowning this whole time and now she was barely breaking out the surface of the water, starting to breath again. They were ragged, painful breaths yet they felt a bit like hope. 

“Thank you” she muttered eventually. “I’ve never had a friend like you before.”

She felt him sigh heavily from where she was pressed against him. Somewhere along the line she’d fallen into his arms and hadn’t let go. 

“It’s okay to be broken Aster. We all are. We’re the fucked-up children whose existence people have been trying to erase for centuries. Off course we’re gonna be broken. But we have each other, okay? You have us. And we have you.”

**

That year she had to pay for art school herself, which she realised when she discovered her father had cut off her allowance after she’d received a letter from her landlord asking her to pay the rent. She couldn’t so she took all of her belongings with her and found herself on the streets for a while. It was only because Noah recognised her when she was sleeping at a bus stop a couple of blocks away from the school (she should have known better than to stay this close but she was tired, oh so tired, and scared, oh so scared, of carrying her bags left and right and she had to go in early to use the gym showers before anyone noticed her and it was terrifying and exhausting to take the subway at 5 a.m) and all but commanded she stayed on his couch that she got off the streets.

She told him it would be temporary, that she’d find a place, really, but then it’d been a month and she couldn’t find a place because New York is so damn expensive and landlords are hell personified. One day he sat down on the couch next to her and told her: “Listen. I’ve found this place. It’s barely bigger than my current apartment but it has two bedrooms and a small living room slash kitchen slash entryway and I think that’ll do the trick. We can move in in a couple of weeks.”

She stared at him in astonishment. She was trying to process the idea that someone would even go out of their way to do such a thing for her. “You… Are you asking me to move in with you?”

He grinned. “Relax, Flores. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me or anything. I just think it’d be cool if we were roommates. I like living with you, you always do the dishes. Plus, we can split the rent in two so it’ll be cheaper than what I have here and you won’t have to sleep on a couch anymore. It’s a win-win situation.”

“But it’s _your_ place, Noah. I can’t be taking that away from you.”

He took her hands in his. “Flores. Look at me.” She didn’t, so he stared at her pointedly until eventually she did. “You are not taking anything away from me, okay? You’re my best friend and I love you. Also, I think you’re too pretty for your own good so it’s best I keep an eye on you.”

She laughed at that. “I’m a grown-ass adult. I think I can take care of myself, Noah.”

“You say that. But then again you’ve yet to meet the lesbians of New York. They’re rustless. Trust me, I know. I’ve dated way too many of them” he replied grimly, making her scoff again. 

“Yeah. Okay. You’re right” Aster said in a low voice.

Noah grinned cheekily at her. “Right about what? Dating way too many ruthless lesbians? Yeah I know.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes but her heart was warming softly, singing a quiet song. “No, dumbass. About us moving in together. I… I think I’d like that” she muttered, voice sounding unsure.

Noah’s smile then could have lit up all of Brooklyn by itself. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! This is going to be awesome” he shouted, jumping up and down until he ended up in her laps and they fell off the couch. 

“Oh my god! Noah! Stop it!” she cried.

But the song in her heart was getting louder.

**

Third year she met Thea at a queer bar Noah had introduced her to. Thea was everything Ellie wasn’t. She was brash and unrelenting and fiery whereas Ellie had been sensible and amenable and reserved (that is, until she wasn’t, the taste of her lips on Aster’s a blazing memory in the shape of held breath and bright hope).

Noah did not like her and told her numerous time but Aster did not listen. She’d spent her whole life listening to other people telling her what was good for her and even though she knew Noah was only being honest out of worry and love for her, she wasn’t in a place in her life to go back to listening. 

Thea would take her to that queer bar they’d met at and they would dance and sing and kiss until the morning. She got her to try MDMA and then coke and then ketamine and she made love to her in her room, on the roof of her place, in the toilets of that bar, in her room again and again and again and again, leaving her restless and always wanting for more. 

Thea looked at her and saw a challenge. A heart to be taken, a facade to be pulled of. But she did it recklessly, relentlessly, until neither of them was able to breath again. Ellie had opened her up in a different way. In a quiet, simple way. She’d opened her up because she’d listened and waited and let her flourish.

Thea went digging into the deepest parts of her soul and relinquished in what she found there.

It wasn’t that their relationship was bad in itself but that they’d been two broken hearted kids in need of a home they couldn’t find in each other. 

They broke up and got back together and yelled and fought and kissed and made love more time than Aster cared to count. Thea cheated on her and apologised and said she’d never do it again and Aster wanted to believe her so badly she listened. She fell and fell and fell every time and let her heart be broken because she didn’t think it deserved to be mend.

The first time she kissed Irène was because she wanted to feel something, anything, that would mean she deserved to not be the one people settled for but the one people _wanted_. She was drunk and she was miserable and she needed to feel wanted. Irène had been here with her longing and hoping and Aster had taken it and torn it apart.

Thea had come back the next morning and she’d let her in.

Noah had watched it happen helplessly and one day they were drifting apart and that was it. It’d been four years and she didn’t recognise herself anymore. She’d lost herself in this relationship the way she’d lost herself in the girl her parents and classmates and teachers had expected her to be.

It was spring when she broke it off with Thea and this time she meant it. This time she was in control.

She went to Irène afterwards and she allowed her heart to be mended.

The second time she kissed her it was a goodbye but it was a warm one. She knew she’d trampled on something good, there. But she’d made her peace with it and accepted that her own fuck-ups had taken her here. To saying goodbye with a kiss. Again.

It was okay, though. Aster was just learning to take care of her own heart. The best gift she could give that girl who’d love her when she didn’t want to be loved was to let her go.

**

Eventually she graduated. She worked her ass off at the gallery in the meantime and collected numbers and cards and names. When the time came to put her art out there she took that painting out of the cardboard folder she’d been preciously keeping it in and she grazed her fingers over it. She clung to it all those years and she’d let herself believe in the promise it carried even though its holder was not here anymore.

She was gone but her faith was not.

So Aster had torn the drawing and made new ones. Bolder, bigger. Closer to her truth.

And then, over two years after her graduation, after she’d sent her art to countless and countless of galleries and art foundations and associations, after she’d been to so many interviews she knew by heart what their rejection felt like, after she painted a painting and tore it off and started it again five time before adding it to her portfolio thinking maybe this one would be good enough, after she’d been holding on to a feeble, weakening hope for so long, she finally got _the_ call.

That night she called Noah and she yelled into the phone: “My art! They said they wanted their next exhibit to revolve around my art! Oh my god Noah, it’s happening!”

Noah started yelling back excitedly through the phone, asking her a thousand questions at a time. “I don’t know yet. They’re thinking May of next year? They’re hoping for at least two thousand visitors. Yeah, I know! Apparently one of my piece caught the eyes of a New York Times editor and they’ll be at the opening? I know it’s _insane_! Yep. Hmmm… I don’t know. I told her my work centres mostly on grief and lost but she said that it had a eager, expectant tone she wanted to explore as well. Yes I know, Noah, I know!”

And so here she was, one year later. Her art on display for anyone to see, in one of the biggest gallery in Manhattan, still standing and shaping her future now.

The opening had gone great. The organiser had told her over a thousand people had shown up, some of them famous art collectors with a huge reputation in the field. 

She came to the gallery every day. She liked being there. Watching the visitors as they watched her art. Letting them share their emotions after she’d shared hers.

She did not expect to meet a faded memory when she walked in that day.

The gallery was quiet, almost empty. Aster greeted the watchman before making her way over to the backroom, where she stored her stuff.

When she got out she stopped in her tracks and her heart stopped in her chest. She caught herself breathing in the phantom of a life long left.

She was peering at one of her painting with a searching, almost mournful gaze. 

The first thing Aster noticed was that she’d gotten tougher. She was wearing a mustard bomber jacket over a black tank top and light blue skinny jeans and she could see the sharp and defined lines of her muscles through it. There was an air of confidence to her Aster didn’t remember even though it felt as though it’d always belonged there. As though it’d only been waiting for her to embrace it.

The second thing she noticed was that she’d cut her hair short. It went flying everywhere in spikes, adding to that disheveled-and-cool vibe she was obviously putting together effortlessly. She ran a hand through it absentmindedly, which only contributed to render it even more chaotic than it already was. 

She was beautiful and Aster could not catch herself before falling again.

“This piece is called ‘The Daisy Under The Hill’. It’s about finding shelter and a family of one’s own through the stormy nights of one’s life” she spoke after she'd made her way to the young woman silently.

The other woman startled and turned toward her, her eyes wide and anxious and maybe a little hopeful. 

“Aster” she muttered heavily. 

Her voice was still of that deep, nuanced timbre that’d always managed to make her feel both on edge and peaceful. 

“Ellie”. It felt like a prayer. Aster had not prayed in a long time. 

“I was passing by and I saw your name on the sign.”

“Yeah. It’s my art” she replied.

“I thought so. A whole exhibition to yourself, huh? That’s impressive.”

“Yeah. Thank you” she shrugged. And then: “It’s been eight years”. And four months, and five days. But Aster didn’t tell her that.

Ellie looked away sheepishly. “Yeah, I know”. She seemed hesitant for a moment. “So how have you be…”

“I’m gay” Aster blurted out. She immediately wanted to set herself on fire. Or burry herself six fit underground. Or maybe both.

Ellie blinked at her owlishly. “Oh. Okay. That’s great” she told her eventually. It was not interrogative, which Aster was thankful for somehow.

“Uh, what I mean is. I grew. That’s what I wanted to say. What happened right before you left it. It helped me grow. I’m not so sure I would have been able to if it hadn’t been for you” she tried to explain, this bit of honesty making her want to crawl out of her own skin.

Ellie always had a way to make her feel seen. To make her feel _exposed_. She’d stare at her and their eyes would meet and she would feel bare, as though suddenly the weight of the lies she’d clothed herself with for so long had been taken off her. She was intrigued by that, by that way she had to make her feel lighter. More free.

She swallowed. Ran a hand through her hair. “I was stuck” she tried again. Wanting to explain. To make the other woman understand. “And then you happened and it gave me a chance not to be anymore.”

Ellie bit her lips. Aster’s pulse was so loud in her ears she felt as though her heart was trying to beat its way out of her. 

“That’s… I’m happy you found yourself, Aster. You deserve it.”

“Yeah”. She knew she didn’t sound convinced but Ellie seemed to decide against pushing it.

She used to push her. To put her on the fence. To challenge her. But they were strangers now, two confused children who’d drifted apart and found life somewhere else.

_… in a couple of years._

“So, hum… What brings you to New York?” she asked, her mouth dry. 

_Me me me me_ , the most irrational part of her brain supplied. She closed her fists and felt her nails dig into her palms. This was loneliness talking and she knew it.

Ellie’s gaze drifted somewhere around her left shoulder. “Oh, huh… I… live here actually. Finishing up my PhD at Columbia. Got accepted there for my master’s thesis after college and just. Stayed. You know. I didn’t think I’d ever get into Columbia.”

Aster wanted to tell her that she thought she would. She’d always known Ellie was brilliant and destined to be the kind of woman people would listen to and be inspired by.

“Columbia, huh? That’s… really impressive. I’m five years late but congratulation” she nodded.

So they’d been living in the same city all this time and Aster hadn’t know. She could have gone to look for her all this time but she didn’t know. But at the same time, how could she have known? She’d never even gotten Ellie’s phone number since the only time they’d been texting was through that secret app. When she was pretending to be Paul.

“Ah… Thank you” Ellie smiled softly. 

Aster stared at the way her eyelashes fluttered and her mouth moved gently and her hair sparked in the daylight.

“You cut your hair” she said. She’d noticed it right away, off course. But she noticed it even more with sunlight breaking through the clouds and giving her a lucent halo through the gallery's bay window.

Because she had. Ellie kept running a hand through it and letting it go all the way and looking surprised each time as though she had forgotten she didn’t have her long, straight strands of jet black hair anymore. Aster didn’t mind. Ellie’s hair was and had always been a beacon of light in the darkness. She’d catch a glimpse of it at the end of a corridor at school and her heart would fill with warmth and a bit of bravery.

“Huh” Ellie uttered, startled. She ran a hand through it again, almost unconsciously. “Oh, yeah, I did last year. Paul drunkenly dared me to and I’m always a bit more dumb when I’m with him so. Yeah. I did.”

“Do you still see him often?” 

Ellie beamed at the question. Her eyes glazed over as she lost herself in what Aster was sure were happy memories of her friendship with the man. “Yeah, I do actually. I saw him every summer throughout college and then when I moved to New York we stayed in touch. He comes to see me every so often even though he’s really busy with the restaurant. And I go back often to see my father, too.”

Aster nodded, ignoring the pang of grief in her heart. It was nice to know Ellie and her father were still so close. 

She probably knew about her and her family, too, if she spent so much time with him. But she hadn't reached out. 

They didn’t say anything for a while. Aster didn’t really know what to say, to be honest. She felt as though she’d left her own body and was watching the scene from afar and it was difficult to focus on talking. 

“Would you like to get coffee with me sometimes?” Ellie finally seemed to decide on saying after the silence had dragged on long enough. She looked hopeful.

“I…” Aster stuttered, taken aback. She took a deep breath and grinned. “Ye… Yeah. I’d love that.”

Ellie’s anxious hopefulness had turned happy. “Cool. Here” she mumbled, rummaging her bag for something, “give me your number and I’ll text you”.

She handed her her phone unlocked on the “new contact” page. Aster took it and dialled her own number and name rapidly. After a second of hesitation she added one of those painting palette emoji next to it. “There” she muttered, giving Ellie’s phone back to her.

“Cool. Hum. I should get going. Got classes to give to moderately interested first years” Ellie said. 

Aster scratched her temple. “Oh, yeah, off course. It was… nice to see you, Ellie” she replied lamely.

Ellie grinned up at her and started waving her goodbye. “Hope we’ll get to do more of that around that cup of coffee” she threw over her shoulder as she turned away.

Aster’s heart missed a bit. “Stop it” she grumbled to herself. “Don’t you dare hope” she ordered in an attempt to make the flutters stop as she watched dark, spiky hair disappear into the subway.

**

Aster was a nervous mess. She was so much of a nervous mess that Noah had forbidden her access to the living room because she was jittering so much and she was keeping him from enjoying his Ryan Murphy marathon. Currently he was rewatching the first season of Pose for the fifth time and crying over how much he loved Bianca and Angel and Damon and all of them, really.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Flores. If you start pacing again right behind the TV I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. I can’t focus with you looming over it like that. Go into your room and stress out over your date where I can’t see you so I can appreciate Billy Porter’s cheekbones peacefully.”

“It’s not a date!” Aster shrieked.

“Oh yes, it is. You’ve been waiting for that woman for eight years so you bet your ass it is.”

Aster deflated. “It’s not… I don’t know… What if there’s no spark anymore?”

Noah’s gaze softened and he pressed pause on the TV remote. He patted the couch until she came to sit down next to him, sighing dejectedly. Noah put an arm around her shoulders and brought her close to him, kissing her on the top of her head. “Whatever happens will happen, Aster. But you can’t worry over what may or may not be. You just have to live it and see. Take a leap of faith. You deserve it.”

“You say that like you’re not fully aware of my dating track record.”

“Oh, I am. Deeply. That’s exactly why I think you shouldn’t pass on something that has the potential to actually be _good_ ” he replied matter-of-factly.

Aster couldn’t help but grin at her best friend’s tone. He was always all tough love on her but she could feel how much he cared in each of his word. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. Now get out of my sight and go get dressed.”

“Yeah, yeah mom, I’m going” she said jokingly as she got up.

“And no ripped off jeans” he yelled out as she disappeared in her bedroom.

And so it was that, two hours and approximatively three hundred pacing steps later, she found herself in front of one of those modern, discreet and obnoxiously expensive Brooklyn coffee shop.

She was so nervous she had to keep herself from pacing while waiting for Ellie to arrive. Instead she looked at the brick wall across the street and imagined what she could paint on it.

“Hi.”

She jerked out of her reverie in surprise and almost stumbled in her haste to turn toward the new voice. “Hi” she replied, a little breathlessly. She ran a nervous hand through her hair and wished the dark green dress she was wearing would hide the small blush that was creeping on her cheeks. Sadly it had way too much of a cleavage for that. She knew she shouldn’t have listened to Noah.

Ellie was standing in front of her, wearing deep blue ripped jeans (“Ah! Take that, Noah Spencer!”) and an orange-and-black checkered flannel. 

“Should we go in?” Ellie asked almost timidly. She then ran a hand through her hair, too, and looked away, her nervousness almost as quiet as Aster’s hopefulness was loud.

Aster wetted her lips. “Yeah. We should.”

She turned around and pushed the coffee shop’s door, holding it open for the other woman. There was no queuing up in front of the counter so their order came through rapidly. They went to sit to a quiet booth near the corner of the bay window and the back wall of the shop, where packages of coffee beans, plants and glass sculpture served as decoration.

They sat down and for a second they remained silent, each sipping on their - too hot, fuming - beverage.

“So… I should apologise” Ellie blurted out eventually, shifting uncomfortably on her seat. She said it fast and low, like it had been barrelling down her tongue and hanging off of it for a long time and she was afraid to let it go.

Aster blinked at her. “Wh… What? Why?”

Ellie fidgeted and started playing with a strand of her hair. Aster drank it in, mesmerised. She could tell Ellie wasn’t aware she was doing it. “Well… I told you I’d see you in a couple of years. And then I never did.”

Aster stared at her in puzzlement. “Oh.”

Ellie was fidgeting now, failing to keep the calm composure she’d been maintaining until then. “I… I wanted to. At first. See you, I mean. But then I learned about what happened with your family and it wasn’t right anymore and by the time I was ready I…”

Aster took her hand in hers without thinking. “Ellie” she said softly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologise or to explain yourself. We were just children”. She bit her bottom lip and looked away. “I… I’m glad you didn’t, actually. Try to reach out, I mean. I wasn’t the kind of person I wanted you to meet again six years ago. I wasn’t in the place I wanted to be and I most certainly wasn’t in a place where I wanted you to get to know me again. Honestly, I would just have ended up fucking it up. I wasn’t ready either.”

It was Ellie’s turn to look at her in bewilderment. “Oh.”

Aster laughed but it was hindered with sadness. “Yeah.”

“I wasn’t the person I wanted you to meet again either” Ellie let out breezily. Her hand was still in Aster’s but her thumb had begun to trace lazy patterns on Aster’s knuckles. It sent shivers throughout the length of her arm and then down her spine right to the end of her feet. She felt as though she might never stop breathing again. “Are you, now?” 

“Huh?” Aster let out, too lost in the feeling of Ellie’s fingers on her skin to follow her train of thoughts.

“The kind of person you want me to meet again. Are you that person, now?”

Ellie was staring at her intently behind her glasses, her gaze intense and infinite. _Seeing_ her, as she’d always know how.

Aster looked down and smiled gently. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I think I am.”

Ellie squeezed her hand again. “Good. I think I am, too.”

And so they talked quietly in the quiet of the small, calm coffee shop. They talked and they stared and they looked away sheepishly and at some point the hand Aster was not holding came to rest on her thigh. It felt warm in a way that told her it belonged here. It felt warm in a way that told her it wanted to. 

She was not afraid nor desperate. She was not trying to run after those dark locks and neither was the other woman. She was not leaving and neither was Ellie. They were still lonely. But they were still hopeful, too. 

Aster was not fading anymore. She felt quiet and for the first time in her life she didn’t mind because this time it did not feel as though she was being silenced.

**Author's Note:**

> et voilà! i hope you enjoyed it, please do not hesitate to leave kudos and comments as i crave validation like any other writer ! 
> 
> english is not my first language and im posting this at 4 a.m. so please if you see mistakes/grammar horrors do tell me!! also i couldn't remember if it was said in the movie to which art school aster was going, so i decided she would end up somewhere in NYC. it might have occurred to you that i've never set foot there so i apologise to any newyorkers abt inaccuracies regarding their city. 
> 
> i might write a bit more in that universe if you guys are up for it but im not making any promises as i tend to have troubles finishing things that i've started lmao (but i do need to write them actually getting together at some point and i think there's still a lot of angsty feelings to unravel here so we will see).
> 
> you can find me [here](https://jilying.tumblr.com) if ever you wanna cry about thoi with me


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